


Predator's Respect

by kijilinn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Werewolves, Zombies, werewolf!Negan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:47:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8940655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn





	1. Chapter 1

He didn’t get the chance to howl for her until almost four months later. Even then, it wasn’t right. It wasn’t real. He hefted the baseball bat, the weapon he’d been bound to since this had started and closed his eyes, letting his chin drop to his chest. He needed the time out, the time to be in his own skin. The time away from the constant battle between the living and the dead. 

He needed to howl for his wife.

He needed to howl for Lucille.

Negan put the baseball bat down beside the bundle of blankets that had been his bed for almost a week now. These people weren’t so bad. He could use them, just like they could use him. A mutually useful arrangement suited him better than people who cared. He still couldn’t care. He stood up slowly and shed the leather jacket, folding it in half and laying it over the top of the blankets. 

“Headed out?” asked Elijah from where the other man was stretched, baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. 

“Just going to walk the perimeter,” Negan replied. His voice was lower than usual and he could hear the grating edge in it. He needed this time. If he ignored it much longer, there would be consequences. He nodded to Elijah and started away from camp.

The other man’s voice stopped him. “Leaving the bat?”

“Yeah.”

“There are still walkers out there.”

“I know.”

Elijah was silent for a moment, then chuckled, “Gonna kill ‘em with your bare hands?”

“I’ve got my knife.” Negan turned so Elijah could see the long hunting knife strapped to his thigh. “I’ll be fine.” They eyed each other and Negan let one corner of his mouth lift. “We fucking done here?”

“No skin off my nose.” Elijah shrugged and settled back down under his hat to doze. “Just don’t get bit.”

“Haven’t yet, not planning on it today.” When Elijah said nothing else, Negan turned toward the forest and headed off to where the little group had wired off a perimeter. With barbed wire in long coils, they had given themselves maybe two acres of safe space, then another barrier of barbed wire and outward-facing wooden spikes. When the wandering dead came close enough, they became tangled or speared long enough for whoever was on guard to end them. It was gruesome, but a system that had worked so far. Two dead men were tangled there now near where Negan had planned to cross, so he dispatched them and hauled their limp bodies away from the camp with him. 

He dumped the corpses into the mass grave they had started about half a mile from their water source, then took a few moments to triangulate by the angles of the sun where he was and where he could best run. Negan found a tangled shrub and crawled into it before shedding hunting knife and boots, jeans and t-shirt, socks and underwear. He wrapped them all into a ball and tucked them deeper into the shrub, then curled around himself, letting his face press against his knees. This would take a while.

The change took almost an hour. That was the thing movies and books never seemed to get right about being a werewolf. It took time to rearrange your entire skeleton from a human into a wolf. It took time and energy to rework your muscles into a different shape, for skin to slough off and hair to grow. There was no shifting on the run.

And it hurt. God, the pain. He knew it would feel better to be on the other side of it, but there was a reason werewolves didn’t shift very often. Once a month was about enough. He didn’t even want to have to think about being a female werewolf: ruled by monthly agonies twice-over.

Finally, panting hard and shaking from the strain, Negan stretched himself out in the shrub and sighed. His pelt shivered and he jerked his head back to nibble at an itch. He was always itchy after shifting. He stood up and stretched, watching his big paws extended in front of him. He was about the size of a natural wolf, weighed about the same as he did as a human. His mass had only rearranged, not magically increased or decreased. Still lean muscle and long, rangy limbs, he managed to look almost more like a huge coyote than a wolf sometimes. Lucille had used to tease him about that.

Lucille.

The whine slipped out of his throat before he could pull it back and Negan shook his head to clear it. She was part of why he was out here in the first place. He crawled out of the shrub, looking around once more to fix the place in his wolf-perspective memory, then turned and started to run. The forest was lit in the half-light of late fall, broad oak and maple leaves rotting under foot and rustling as he moved. 

He chased a rabbit, more for the fun of chasing it than with any intent on killing it. 

He chased a squirrel when it ran.

A fox ran from him in terror and he let it go. Predator’s respect. 

He chased his tail.

It was almost dark now and he dropped himself with a huff into a pile of wind-drifted leaves to stare into the gathering gloom. Lucille had been human. But he had loved her. So much. The affair… he still couldn’t even explain that to himself. Yes, he wanted to fuck lots of women, but when it came right down to it, he’d give them all up to have her back. Lucille. His Lucille. 

His mate.

The pain ripped through him and he was up, head thrown back and howling wildly into the twilight before he could even consider the consequences. Everything he had lost: Lucille, the world, the peace of a normal life… it all poured out of him as he howled. When his breath ran low, he stopped long enough to take a deep breath and start up again. 

Distantly, he heard other wolves answering his cry, acknowledging his pain, grieving with him. Most of those voices were wild wolves. Or dogs. Some of them he could hear were domesticated dogs gone feral in the end of the world. But at least one… he could hear his people out there somewhere. He had distanced himself from them for the love of a human woman. Maybe it wasn’t too late to fix that. Would Lucille forgive him for being a wolf? She had loved him in spite of it. In spite of everything.

He let one more howl rip out of his throat as true night finally drew over him. As it faded out into echoes, Negan listened to the voices answering him. Yes, there was very clearly one werewolf out there. The voice that called back to him held the same longing, the same lonely grief for the end of the world. Whoever that wolf was, he needed to find them.

Lucille could help him.

 

***

 

The howl that reached her sounded raw, grief-stricken. She sat and listened, letting her tail curl over her feet. Where was he? What had happened to make him so sad? A soft keening in her throat came before she tipped her head back to answer him.

Next to her, her sister nipped her shoulder and she cut off the howl. Her sister’s ears rotated in irritation and she snorted, dismissive. When she gave her sister a glare, her sister growled and snapped lightly at her before turning away. The distant wolf’s voice came again and pulled her back, making her pause. Her sister growled again, but she didn’t draw away. She stepped right to the edge of the forest and listened to his voice before closing her eyes and calling back.

She poured all of herself into that howl. No more ice cream. No more dog parks. No more clean cotton on freshly-shaved skin. No more casual touches in the hallway. No more laughter over beer. No more beer. 

She missed people. Her brief time exploring the human world hadn’t been enough and she longed for it. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life hunting rabbits. She wasn’t even that interested in finding a mate and making a pack of her own. But humans were so fragile, even moreso now that a simple bite or scratch could cause their death and reanimation. She had spent her whole life with wolves, only a few months on a college campus before everything had fallen apart. But that tiny taste had been mouth-watering. 

So she voiced her grief for lost chances. 

Her sister’s teeth on her shoulder made her flinch away and she sighed, letting the howl fall off. She hung her head and followed Arat back into the forest, but not before she glanced once more toward the horizon, wondering where that wolf was and why he was so lonely.

 

***

 

Negan sighed as the last echoes of the other wolf’s voice faded into the night. The voices of other wolves had always pulled on him, even long after he’d slipped out of their company and into the life of a human. He missed having someone to run with, someone to howl with. As happy as he had been with Lucille, even when he was fucking it up, that had always ached a little.

He turned back toward the camp and loped through the forest until he found his thicket again. Before he could crawl inside, the stench of the undead reached him and his lips peeled back in a snarl. Rotting flesh and boiled shit, the smell was enough to make him sneeze, which also drew their attention. With guttural snarls and lurching movements, two walkers turned towards him and began staggering through the undergrowth. 

This wasn’t new. Negan held very still, watched as the zombies came nearer, then began to fumble around, slowly losing interest as they no longer saw movement. Finally, they turned away and shuffled off again. Movement and noise always drew their attention, but a sudden lack of it would send them away again. At least, with animals. Humans...it was like they recognized themselves and sought to devour it. Negan twitched his pelt in disgust, then crept back into his thicket of brush to change.

He had been bitten twice since seeing Lucille put down. The first time, he had welcomed the chance to die, to sink into that oblivion and find his mate again. When the bite didn’t make him sick, only slowly healed and scabbed over, Negan had resigned himself to life without Lucille. Whatever caused this apparently didn’t work on werewolves any more than it worked on deer and dogs and horses. 

The transition to human took just as long as it had to wolf, leaving him sprawled in the scrubby bush, naked and panting and hungry. Finally, Negan lifted his head and started reassembling the human side of himself. Once he was clothed and armed again, he stalked into the darkness to find those walkers. They may not bother him, but they were still a threat to the camp.

When he came back across the fence, he found Elijah awake and stirring up the cooking fire. Becca was peeling something that looked like it might have once been a potato and her sister, Darcy was opening a can of soup to warm beside the fire. They were Elijah’s nieces, all he had left of family since the end of the world. “Charlie still on patrol?” Negan asked as he dropped down on his bundle of blankets and loosened the knife from his leg. 

“Yup,” confirmed Elijah. “That was the longest perimeter patrol I think I’ve ever heard of.” He looked up at Negan slowly, his expression guarded and skeptical.

“I needed the space.”

“Did you hear the wolves?”

“Hard to miss.” Negan leaned back against his pack and checked over his knife for nicks. “They sounded pretty far off, though.”

“Lot of them.”

“They sounded pretty spaced out to me.” Elijah fell silent and the girls exchanged worried glances. Negan lifted his head and watched them for a second before he said, “Look, is there something you’re fishing for? You’ve been on my back all day.”

Elijah didn’t look at him and just slowly shrugged. “We saw the bites,” said Darcy suddenly and Negan raised his eyebrows at the girl. She wasn’t much older than sixteen, but she was a scrappy little thing and he admired her spirit. “You were bitten.”

“Do I look like a fucking zombie to you?” Negan winced at the flash of Elijah’s eyes; the other man hated Negan’s casual cussing and he had tried to back off since they had started traveling together. 

“It’s healed, though,” Darcy continued. “Both of them.” Negan let his lips twitch: only one of those bites was easily visible when he was fully clothed. Someone had been peeking. Her face flushed when she realized she had given herself away, but soldiered on, “If you’ve got healed bites, does that mean you’re immune?” Negan just watched her without speaking and the girl stood up suddenly to pace back and forth. “You know something. Admit it. Is there a cure? Natural immunity? What? If you’ve been bitten and survived, there has to be a way--”

“There’s no way.” Negan slipped his knife into its sheath again. He looked up at her and gave her a sad smile. “I’m sorry, doll, but there isn’t.” He pulled the sleeve of his jacket back to regard the healed half-moon bite mark in his wrist. “It didn’t kill me. But I don’t think it’s something I can just give to you.”

“Have you tried?”

He looked at her again, his dark eyes serious and solemn. “No. Because if I’m wrong, there’s a lot more that goes with it than just immunity.” Darcy and Becca exchanged a long look before the younger girl went back to sit near the fire again. Negan sighed and rubbed a temple. “Look. If you’re worried about me, I’ll leave.”

Elijah kept his eyes on the flickering flames as he answered: “Should I be worried?”

“I’m only dangerous to things that are already dead. And rapists.”

“And deer,” added Becca and Negan nodded with a small smile. 

“And deer.” He searched Elijah’s face. “Fuck, man, I’m one of the good guys out here.”

Elijah offered him a half smile and a shrug. “Even the bad guys think they’re doing the right thing.”

 

***

 

And so, he left.

The next morning, he packed up his roll of blankets, took his pistol and a box of bullets, two cans of soup, a box of matches. He secured his hunting knife and settled the baseball bat over his shoulder before looking quietly at Elijah and nodding once. The other man returned the nod and Negan set out to the North.

Alone.

But he didn’t mean to stay alone. And he wasn’t entirely alone now. Not with Lucille over his shoulder. He jogged into the forest and aligned himself by his memories from last night, following the lonely howl that still rang in his ears. 

He’d find that wolf. Wherever they were.

He needed a pack again. He couldn’t do this alone anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Every night, she found herself drawn to that same spot at the edge of their territory, her ears cocked forward and her tail alert, curious. She listened for him, hoping. When two weeks passed without another howl from a werewolf, she whined quietly. Arat nipped her shoulder, hard enough to make her flinch. When she looked to her sister, the other wolf growled, her tail low and stiff and her body language angry. She shifted to the side, then looked out toward the open sky again. An angry snarl from her sister caught her attention just before Arat shouldered her way abruptly between her and the open sky. She found herself shoved over onto her side and she yelped a protest before writhing away before Arat could pin her down. Her sister chased her back into the woods, growling and snapping until they had reached the den.

Her mother looked at her, black eyes wary, then past her to Arat, who backed away and bowed her head a little. Their father was still asleep and their mother was making sure they knew it. The older wolf tilted her head, paused to squat and piss against a tree, then returned to the den. The urination was the usual code for “I’ll be right back; you’d better have a tongue capable of speech when I do.” She looked at Arat, who huffed and crouched in the lee of a bush to start her change. 

Arat had a name. She had one, too, but she never thought of herself that way when she was a wolf. It took at least twenty minutes into the change for it to drift back to her: she was Jadis. She had talked to Arat about it once or twice and her sister had confirmed her experience. They were nameless to themselves as wolves, but always remembered each other. They were littermates, had been born with their two brothers and had lived together with their parents. 

When they were eighteen, they had all been given the option of trying human life for a while. The boys had taken the chance and run with it all the way to California. Arat had tried it for a semester, then returned to the woods. Jadis… had loved it. But couldn’t bring herself to be away from her family. Away from her sister, her parents. Her pack. If Arat had been interested in staying, she would have stayed, but she couldn’t do it alone. The loneliness was just too intense.

And now, Arat could see her wavering again. Her sister could see the longing that kept driving her to the edge of the forest, listening for the sound of another werewolf in the distance. When there had still been the option of escaping into the human world for a while, it had been something she could shelve for later. But now that the dead were walking on rotted feet, normal life, human life was lost to her again.

A long, spiralling sigh dropped Jadis back into human form against the rough, leaf-covered ground. She always transferred to human form more quickly than her sister or her parents. She kept clothing stashed in the hollow of a tree, too. Jadis stood up and glanced down at her body, strong limbs and dark skin that blended with the twilight. Her hair always fell in kinky curls past her shoulders, though she had tied it back when she was attending school. With a flick of her wrist, she pulled the sealed gallon-sized zipper bag out of the hollow and removed the knee-length, cream-colored satin chemise. It was lightweight and didn’t warm her skin at all, but she wasn’t wearing it for warmth. She was wearing it to remember. 

And she did. She remembered dancing in the moonlight on the edge of campus, laughing when the boys stared after her. She remembered being caught by one of them, held close and kissed. She remembered the thrill, that maybe it really was that simple to find a mate. Jadis turned a slow, sweeping circle in the clearing before pausing with a sad sigh. She had been wrong. He had taken her, used her, discarded her. The way of humans, she had learned, but she still remembered the joy of it.

Arat let out a pained, irritated grunt before she sat up and vigorously ran her fingers through her short hair. She looked up at Jadis and the sisters exchanged challenging stares before Arat’s eyes softened and she stood up. She didn’t speak, but Arat walked over and leaned her shoulder against Jadis’s, closing her eyes and letting her head rest sideways. She was about two inches shorter than Jadis and more compactly built, stronger and faster in a small package. She made a much better wolf than Jadis did. Jadis knew she looked softer, like all her edges had been rounded off while Arat looked like a jagged knife, always ready to cut deep.

A few minutes later, their mother came out of the den. Corinne studied her daughters, her arms crossed across her dark breasts as she paused in the entrance. When she spoke, her voice was rough and low, like she hadn’t used it in a long time. “Who’s been howling?”

Arat snorted and jerked her head at Jadis, who felt her cheeks heat quickly. “I didn’t start it,” Jadis protested quietly. 

“Didn’t ask who started,” Corinne coughed twice into her fist, then continued, “just who howled. Anyone we know?”

Jadis shook her head without meeting her mother’s eyes and Corinne made a soft, wary sound in her throat. “I’m curious,” Jadis admitted.

“Again?” snapped Arat and she shoved off of Jadis’s shoulder to stomp a few steps away in irritation. Every line of her lean body was stiff and angry and Jadis hung her head, eyes closed.

Corinne watched them both for a moment, then said to Jadis, “Tell me.”

So Jadis took a deep breath and told her. About the lonely sense of loss in that howl. Of how her own howl had been answered almost immediately when she called to him. How she hadn’t heard him again in two weeks and now she needed to know what had happened to him. She paused then to look up at her mother. “Could he just have moved on?”

“Not with loneliness like that,” Corinne sighed. “Call tonight. If he answers, we’ll all call him.” Hope surged in Jadis’s chest and she stood up straighter, watching her mother’s face. “An invitation only,” Corinne snapped. “We’ll see if he comes.”

“Thank you,” gasped Jadis and she turned immediately to sprint through the woods, barefoot and full of excitement. 

“Jadis!” Arat barked and grumbled as she took off after her sister. 

Corinne smiled quietly to herself before turning back to the den where her mate still slept.

 

***

 

The night ripped open into a burst of color when her voice reached him again. Negan stopped dead in his tracks to listen, not even realizing that he had swayed toward the sound when she called to him. He’d been walking as a human for two weeks, hoping his memory served him well enough to keep from wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. He had considered switching to wolf to conserve energy and cover more distance, but had decided he didn’t want to leave his supplies behind and go completely feral. 

Now, hearing her, knowing he was going in the right direction…

Negan shook himself all over and opened his eyes again. It would take too long to go back to wolf to answer. So he steeled himself and howled back, the stunted, human cry of a man in the wilderness, alone. He heard how odd he sounded, how short his throat felt. It wasn’t the call of a wolf, wasn’t exactly the scream of a human. Somewhere between. They always fell somewhere in between.

She answered again, an almost joyful yip that made him smile. She sounded younger than he had thought at first. As soon as her yip reached him, a second wolf lifted their voice in an almost snarled howl, resentful, warning. Did she have a mate? A third voice answered, a little farther from him. Older, calming, a steady presence of authority. When the three voices fell silent, Negan waited, wondering. Just as he was taking a breath to call back again, a lone howl shivered him right through to his bones, took his breath away, bowed his knees. Alpha. Father. 

They were a pack, this undeniable father figure and his surrounding females: mate and daughters. He was standing on the edge of a pack territory. Negan took pause and rubbed his hands over his face for a second. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. It was one thing to approach a female, maybe even two if there were sisters running together. But to approach a full pack? With a male in his prime? That was a werewolf easily as strong as Negan, if not stronger. Older, fully mature, settled in his territory. It had been a long time since Negan had truly felt uncertain around another man and just the thought of approaching this werewolf, in his own territory, among his own pack, was enough to make his stomach clench. 

But the male’s howl came again, a truce offered, safe passage, hospitality. Negan waited and then closed his eyes to smile as the mate’s voice joined the first and the younger two females blended their voices with their parents’. It was an explicit invitation to meet at the border, to see each other and talk, to be conscious of each other in this unconscious world. Negan listened to that one voice, the voice who had answered him. He could still hear her loneliness, her yearning for things lost. 

And so he raised his voice to accept their offer.

As he started to angle towards where their voices originated, Negan found tears blurring his vision. He wiped at them, irritable but still overwhelmed. It had been a long time since he’d seen another werewolf. A very, very long time. 

 

***

 

He was coming. He was coming!

Delight filled Jadis with a wild glee that had her bouncing around the clearing, all but wagging her tail like a fool. Arat glared at her, but had to sit down hard to keep from wiggling her own excitement. Seeing her sister happy was enough to fill Arat with her own irrational joy. 

“Enough.” Their father stepped out of the den, dressed in clothes that hadn’t seen the light of moon or sun in probably two years. He wore a thick, flannel-lined plaid shirt over denim jeans worn thin and pale by use and age. “Get changed. And I want you in actual clothes,” he added, giving Jadis a pointed glare, “not that flimsy thing you like to play around in. We don’t know this man and we won’t be presented as backwaters.” After a moment, he glanced at Arat. “Yes, I mean you, too. Clothes. And shoes.” Arat whined a protest, but tucked her tail and slipped away to start shifting back to human form. Jadis hopped up on her father like an unruly puppy to lick at his face, then darted after her sister. 

“I remember being that young,” Corinne chuckled quietly as she came out of the den behind her mate, letting her hands settle around his waist as she leaned against his back. “How did you sleep, Benjamin?”

“Not long enough,” Benjamin sighed and dropped his head back to her shoulder. 

“You slept for ten hours,” she snorted in reply and leaned to nip at his ear. “Are you turning into a bear that you hibernate?”

Benjamin glanced at her over his shoulder and huffed a wordless, amused answer before reaching behind him and drawing his mate into his arms. “I dreamed about you.”

“I’m pretty sure you were awake for that part,” she murmured playfully, letting her lips brush against his. She stroked long-fingered hands over his cheeks and kissed him, sinking into his arms as they both remembered being as young as their daughters. 

“I did, though,” Benjamin added after enjoying the kiss. “About you. And a stranger coming to our territory.” He pulled Corinne closer to his chest, a cloud crossing his face. “And the dead.”

Corinne went still, listening to his voice. Her mate was known for occasional semi-prophetic dreams and even if it was coincidence, it paid to listen to him when he spoke. “Should we have not invited him?” she whispered. “Should we send him away?”

“I don’t think it matters now,” he sighed, leaning against her. “It’s in motion now. And Jadis won’t stand for anything less than a visit. She has so missed other people.”

Corinne closed her eyes. “I wish she had gone to California with Jeremy and Paul. She’s so lonely here.”

“We don’t even know if they’re still alive,” Benjamin reminded his mate with a gentle nudge of his nose on her cheek. “No, she made her choice to come back with Arat. They have been so close for so long, I’m not sure what Arat would have done if she hadn’t.” When Corinne let out a soft whine of worry and frustration, he smiled and stroked her face. “Shh. Our guest will be at the border soon. You should get dressed, my love.”

“Ugh,” Corinne sighed, glaring down at her own nakedness. “You know how I feel about clothes.”

“And you know I share your feelings most of the time,” he grinned and kissed her again. “But until we have a better gauge of this outsider, we present as civilized people. Not nudists running wild in the forest.” When she whined reluctantly as she turned away, he slapped her bare butt smartly with the flat of his hand, making her yip and giggle. “And shoes!” he added after her before grinning and returning to his study of the autumn sky.


	3. Chapter 3

Negan found the scent markings along their border, just as he was meant to. He stopped walking, crouched down and unloaded hunting knife and pistol, finally laying Lucille tenderly in the leaves. “Don’t worry, baby,” he whispered. “They won’t hurt you. I promise.” Once he was disarmed, Negan returned to a decent distance away from his weapons and waited. The next move was theirs.

At the treeline, movement betrayed his entrance. Negan watched with wide eyes as a tall man stepped out of the trees, paused with the alert bearing of a hunter on a trail, then walked forward to examine what Negan had left at the border. He was truly a monster of a man, probably two or three inches taller than Negan and easily another eighty pounds of pure muscle. His skin was a deep shade of russet brown in the dying light and when he looked up at Negan again, his black eyes flashed with a surprising amount of humor. He straightened up and regarded Negan before calling, “My name is Benjamin.”

“I’m Negan,” he replied.

“Where from?” Benjamin tilted his head, still smiling slightly.

“Central Virginia,” Negan said. “Farther South. You from here?”

“Born and raised.”

“Beautiful land.”

“Yes,” Benjamin agreed with pride in his voice, “it is.”

Negan shifted his feet, feeling his position of guest as a blow to his ego. It was hard being on someone else’s turf. “I heard your daughters. And your mate.”

“They heard you first.” Benjamin’s face softened as he added, “You’ve been alone for a while.”

“My mate died at the beginning of all this.” Negan twirled a finger vaguely in a circle. “She was all I had.”

“No pack?”

“No.” The pain in that single syllable resounded in his chest and Negan closed his eyes. He wanted to howl again. Just talking about it was enough to almost bring him to his knees. And now he had abandoned Lucille again, in the middle of that damn border to be pawed by a complete stranger. He could feel his hackles rising and took a deep breath, pushing the rage away. There was no point in being angry. Especially not here and now. “She was human.”

Benjamin was silent for a long time and Negan opened his eyes to check that the man was still there. “How long?”

“Twelve years.”

Benjamin’s head slowly tilted to the side before he asked in a low voice, “Since you ran?”

Negan smiled. “No. Just since I ran with anyone else.” The two men watched each other, taking in each other’s movements and stillness, clothing, posture. “I know we don’t know each other,” Negan finally said. “But it’s been a long time and so much of the world has changed. Could we maybe… figure this out together?”

Benjamin nodded slowly and smiled. “Leave your weapons here for now. I’ll introduce you.” Movement in the treeline drew Negan’s attention and he went on alert, eyes wide and spine straight. Three women stood in the dark shadows there. His nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw, embarrassed by the instinctive urge to scent them. He turned his eyes to Benjamin and waited for the other man to start walking before he fell in behind him. “My mate, Corinne,” the older man said as he approached. 

“Negan,” Negan said with a small smile, offering Corinne his hand. “Pleasure, ma’am.” She shook his hand with a strong, firm grip and a welcoming smile. He had forgotten the scent of female werewolves and being this close to her surprised him with a rush of adrenaline. When Negan’s hand twitched in her grasp, Corinne’s smile became slightly strained and she released his hand quickly. “Sorry,” he added as he stepped back, head bowed. “It’s been longer than I thought.”

Corinne and Benjamin exchanged glances before she said in a tight voice, “I’ll thank you to maintain better manners around my daughters, sir.” When Negan nodded without meeting their eyes, they both seemed to relax a little. Corinne looked over her shoulder and called, “Arat? Jadis? You can come out now.”

The two women who came out of the treeline made Negan straighten up again, surprised. The shorter woman moved more like a jungle cat than a wolf, her dark eyes intense and focused as she moved between Negan and her taller sister. When she met his eyes, her chin lifted and she half-snarled at him, lips pulled back from her teeth. Negan took a step back as she approached, then looked past her. Something about the taller woman drew him and he found himself taking a few steps closer before Benjamin cleared his throat sharply and brought him to a halt again. She was beautiful, captivating, dark hair in coils over her shoulders and her expression curious, hopeful, open. 

When they stopped beside their mother, Corinne gestured to the shorter woman and said softly, “This is Arat,” she indicated the other woman, “and Jadis. My daughters.”

Negan’s nostrils flared again and he was surprised when Jadis dipped her chin and smiled, a very human gesture of shy pleasure. She took another step towards him, but stopped when Arat reached out and jerked her back by the shoulder, growling low. “I’m Negan,” he said, watching the two sisters’ interaction carefully. 

“Stay away from my sister,” Arat snarled at him shortly, then turned back toward the trees, grabbing Jadis and shoving her along in front of her. 

Negan raised his eyebrows and Benjamin snapped, “Arat! That’s enough.” She turned back and glared, still gripping her sister by the upper arm. “Your sister can make her own decisions. Let her go.” 

When Arat let go, Jadis gave her sister a little shove, a playful movement that made Arat glower. But when Negan looked again, he could see the familiarity and ease between them. Arat may call the shots, but Jadis allowed it. Jadis turned back to face Negan and came to stand beside her mother, chin lifted as she gazed at him. “I heard you,” she told him, her voice like silk. 

“I heard you, too,” Negan answered. He couldn’t look away from her. He swallowed, harder than he had in a long time and tried to twitch his skin to keep from getting lost in the ebony of her eyes. “What…” he paused to clear his throat and tried to speak again without a rasp in his voice, “what did you lose? To make you howl like that?”

Jadis glanced at her parents, who both inclined their heads. What she wanted to say was up to her. She looked back at Negan and his stomach tightened. “A chance.”

“A chance.” Negan took a step closer to her and she smiled. “A chance at what?”

“A chance to be something else. More than a sister. More than a daughter.” She paused and looked at him again, her head moving in a slow, snaking motion that made him bite his lip. “More than a mate or a bitch.” Her smile was sad. “But now that’s all that’s left.”

Negan took the final step and lifted his fingers, carefully reaching to stroke the backs of his knuckles against her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. “You are already so much more than that,” he whispered. 

Her eyes were still closed, but she smiled at him. “What did you lose?” she asked him, her voice throaty and warm. 

Lucille.

His hand twitched back from her skin and his jaw tightened into a sharp line. “My mate.”

Jadis took a deep breath and stepped away from him, her eyes flashing wide. “I’m sorry.”

They stared at each other for a long moment before Arat snorted sharply behind Jadis and said, “What the fuck are we talking about here? I already told you to stay away from my sister and you’ve already had your chance, grandpa.”

“Arat,” snapped Benjamin. 

“He has!” she replied, waving a hand at Negan derisively. “He’s had his mate and he couldn’t keep her alive. Why the fuck should he get another chance? Nobody else does.”

Negan licked his lips and stepped farther away from Jadis, looking back toward where his weapons and gear were still piled. Where Lucille was waiting. “No, she’s right. I…” When he looked up at Jadis again, there was sadness in her eyes and he flinched, looking away again. “I should probably go.”

“Don’t.” Benjamin walked over and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Don’t leave. You don’t have to be alone.” 

“I should go.” Negan smiled, just a quick quirk of his lips, but he stepped back and toward the border. “It was good to see others, though. Thank you.” When Benjamin and Corinne didn’t move to stop him, he steeled his shoulders and started walking more quickly. 

Sounds behind him made Negan glance over his shoulder and he saw Arat and Jadis struggling and snarling at each other, wordless and with the ferocity of any set of fighting wolves. He paused, his brow furrowed and he looked to their parents, uncertain. But Benjamin and Corinne didn’t move from their places, just watching their children fight. With a sudden jerk of her foot, Arat caught Jadis behind the leg and drove her to the ground, straddled her and pinned her there. 

Something in Negan’s chest snapped and he came forward again with a snarl of his own, grabbed Arat and pulled her off her sister. “That is not how we do things!” he roared at her. He had his fingers wrapped tightly into the cloth of her shirt as he shook her a little. “She is your sister. You’re supposed to protect her. Not hurt her.”

“I’m not hurt,” Jadis said and rolled to gather her feet. “I’m okay.”

Arat and Negan glared at each other, both trembling with tension. “You still. Don’t. Do. That,” he growled. “That shit is not cool.” After another few moments of twitching and growling at each other, Arat finally let her eyes drop and Negan released her shirt. When she shrugged her shoulder to realign her shirt, Negan waited, watching her. 

Benjamin’s voice reached them and they all looked up: “Wolves mate for life. But we don’t have to.” He smiled quietly when Arat snorted. “And most of the rules have changed anyway. Jadis, do what you want. It’s your life.”

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye was the only warning Negan got before Jadis had her arms around his neck and was kissing him. He wrapped his arms around her, surprised and overwhelmed by her, but not going to deny her, either. When she let him up for air, he stared into her face, breathless and stunned. “Why?” he asked. 

She smiled at him, her teeth a bright gleam in the darkness. “Because I smell chances on you.” 

As she kissed him again and again, Benjamin and Corinne smiled at each other and slipped back into the forest. Arat lingered, watching her sister with sad eyes until Jadis looked up, lips bruised and swollen. “I’ll miss you,” Arat grumbled quietly.

“Come with us.” Negan grinned at the shock in the sisters’ faces. “There’s no reason a pack can’t be fucking pear-shaped.” Jadis’s face bloomed in a brilliant smile and she looked at her sister, hopeful. “Stay or come,” Negan said softly. “You’re welcome to hunt next to me.”

“Just keep your dick to yourself,” Arat snarled and turned back toward the center of their territory. “I’m gonna change. Don’t fucking leave without me.”

Jadis leaned her forehead against Negan’s cheek, grinning. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered. “I didn’t even know it. But I was.” Negan sighed and held her close to him, still trying to sort out all the thoughts and feelings pinging through his mind. “Do you want to change?”

“Easier to carry supplies this way,” he murmured back, his eyes closed. “You?”

“I like being human,” she smiled. “Slower, maybe not as strong. But I feel...more like me.”

“More like you is good.” Negan lowered his mouth to hers and tasted her, kissing her slowly as she melted against his chest. “And now we wait.”

 

***

 

When Arat returned, she was carrying in her mouth the jeans and ratty flannel shirt she had been wearing as a human. She dropped them at Jadis’s feet and huffed, glaring at her sister. Jadis grinned and collected the clothes, rolled them tightly into a bundle and tucked them inside the duffle bag Negan had been carrying. “I think we’re ready to go.”

“Anything else you need?” Negan asked, letting his hand run slowly up and down Jadis’s back. “Weapons, gear, supplies?”

“We spend most of our time as wolves,” Jadis told him. Beside her, Arat shook herself and craned her neck around to nibble at an itch. Without even thinking about it, Negan reached over and scratched the compact wolf between the shoulder blades, where she couldn’t reach herself and where the change always made him itch the worst. Jadis grinned when Arat snapped at his hand, but gave a soft, gurgled sound of contentment anyway. “Careful about that,” she chuckled. “She bites.”

Arat huffed in irritation without opening her eyes. “I think her bark is worse,” Negan said conversationally and pulled his hand back when the wolf snapped at him again. “Admit it, sugar,” he grinned to Arat, “you like me.” Arat curled her lip in a growl, but leaned into his hand when he held it out to scratch her shoulder again. 

“Arat doesn’t like anyone,” Jadis grinned. “Not even me.” She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, looked up into the sky and exhaled, a sound of bliss and hope. “I haven’t felt this free in… well, maybe ever.”

Negan watched her movements, smiling more to himself than for anyone else. “How old are you, Jadis?”

Her eyes were troubled when she looked back at him. “Twenty.”

Negan sighed. “I’m more than twice your age. Why me?”

Jadis slipped her arms around his waist and leaned against his chest, burying her face in his chest with a soft sound. “I told you. You smell like chances. And you sound like home. Age is just a number and we don’t even count that kind of thing as wolves. We barely have names.”

“Arat wasn’t wrong about me,” he said quietly and let his lips press against her forehead. “I’m not young and I’ve had my chance. I fucked it up. Royally.”

“What about second chances, then?” Jadis smiled up at him. “You’re full of chances. If you’re willing to take them. Take chances with me.”

Negan laughed softly and leaned down to kiss her. “I think you’ve got that backwards, sweetheart. You’re full of chances and you’re wasting them all on me.” He jumped with a little yelp when Arat nipped the back of his calf and glared up at him. “What? You’re the one who called me out on this.” The wolf snorted at him and leaned like she would nip him again while Jadis laughed.

“She’s got a point. The decisions are made, the chances taken.” She brushed her lips along his jawline and Negan sighed, his eyes sinking closed. “You’ll just have to make the best of it now.”


End file.
